With the increased threat to safety at certain buildings, a need exists to protect the occupants of a building. The threats may come in the form of workplace retaliation, a shooter, a mentally unstable individual looking for publicity, planned acts of terrorism, random violence or environmental disasters. When any one of these threats are initially detected, the occupants of the building may be protected by obstructing the view from the perpetrator or to the occupants. The occupants may also be protected by incorporating a barrier over the windows to minimize the impact of an outside force entering the building. For example, if a shooter is outside the building, the shooter may try to shoot at people that he can see through the windows. This may occur in schools when the school comes under a “lockdown” due to an eminent threat for life safety. Furthermore, it may be best to shield the view of the outside events from young students inside the building. Moreover, a hurricane may throw objects into windows, so a barrier over the windows may at least partially protect the windows and the occupants behind the windows.
By providing a quick barrier in front of the windows, the occupants may be better shielded or hidden from the outside. However, existing window coverings typically need to be lowered individually, which takes a long time. Moreover, the teacher would be visible to the outside threat when the teacher is trying to lower the various window shades. Motorized window shades may lower the window shades too slowly, the motorized shades may be controlled by a central monitoring system which is not aware of the security breach or the controller may be not conveniently accessible in a central location (or in a safe location). Motorized window coverings additionally draw power during the full cycle of the window covering operation. As such, a need exists for a low-cost remotely-triggerable manual shade designed to facilitate safety.